Amy is the Founder of Represented, a boutique executive search firm that specializes in identifying, assessing and recruiting executives from underrepresented groups. Building on years of success recruiting leadership teams for the Moonshots and Bets at Alphabet, Amy is uniquely positioned to help investors, board members and leadership teams bend the representation curve at their companies.

 

Represented believes, and research supports, that more diverse leadership teams, achieve stronger returns. Over the course of 3.5 years at Alphabet, Amy and her team recruited 60 leaders to 12 different companies and more than 50% of those leaders were women and people of color. Today Amy focused on Deep Tech, Climate Tech and Media Tech. But, the unifying theme is always REPRESENTATION.

 

Vernetti’s tenure in Silicon Valley has been marked by a diverse set of experiences.  She spent the early 90s at the two largest search firms in the world in the San Francisco and Silicon Valley offices.  While at Heidrick and Struggles from 1995-1999, Vernetti was on the five-person launch team for Heidrick online, an innovative search management portal that was the first of its kind in the industry.

 

In the late 90s Vernetti joined Guy Kawasaki’s company Garage.com as employee number 20 and pioneered a portfolio approach to Human Capital.  During the Garage.com years, Vernetti was a headliner at the company’s Bootcamp for Startups.  Over the course of two years, Vernetti delivered her “War for Talent” speech to thousands of entrepreneurs all over the world.  “War for Talent” was the basis for the Human Capital section of Guy Kawasaki’s 2005 book The Art of the Start.  

 

Vernetti took a leave of absence in 2012 to join Ron Johnson in the turnaround of the JC Penney Company.  Vernetti focused on Real Estate, Store Operations, eCommerce, Social Media and Online Learning at JC Penney before returning to her traditional technology practice..

 

In 2016 Vernetti joined Alphabet, 6-months after it was created, to work with Larry Page, Sergey Brin, Ruth Porat, David Drummond and Astro Teller on building out leadership teams for the Moonshots and Bets.  She gives a talk called “Equality is the Ultimate Moonshot” which details the steps required to ensure diverse leadership teams. 

 

Vernetti is a Bay Area native who graduated from St. Mary’s College of California, where she attended on an NCAA Division I basketball scholarship.  In 2009 Vernetti was named one of the 40 Most Influential Alumnae of St. Mary’s College.